


Mundane Fears

by ConvenientAlias



Category: The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21787243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: And what if Gyre's mother doesn't recognize her?
Relationships: Gyre Price & Peregrine Price, Gyre Price/Em Arasgain
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Mundane Fears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



Funny how she can still be afraid of something so mundane.

It seems like Gyre should only be afraid of things like the dark, or closed spaces, or ghosts staring over her shoulder accusatorily when she kisses Em ( _she killed us she killed us how could you how could you_ ). But although these things still give her shivers, there is something comforting about that kind of fear almost. She has been known to merge all three fears together, curled against Em with a blanket tightly wrapped around both of them, covering their heads and their bodies so that all there is is the darkness, the blankets’ constriction like the hug of a suit, and Em’s skin against hers, and Em’s breath and her heartbeat. Then she is in the caves and out of them at once, and she knows the dead are watching, and even then she is only half afraid.

These fears she has become close with, intimate with as she is intimate with Em, who is of course at the root of them all anyhow.

But there are some things that still shake her in a less comfortable way.

“What if she doesn’t recognize me?” she whispers.

They are in bed in a hotel on a gardening planet. The lights are soft, dimmed, but not dark enough for the fear or the comfort of a cave-feeling to set in. Em is beside her, as she promised she would be some months ago. Tomorrow they are going to a board meeting, where Gyre will be demonstrating the use of Em’s newest model of caver suit. At this board meeting will be Peregrine Price.

Gyre is going to talk to her. She thinks.

“What if she doesn’t recognize me?”

Em has heard her, but is still considering. She says, “She might not. It’s been many years, after all. But she should recognize you. You look enough like her, after all. You’re tougher, and you also look like your father, and you’ll be wearing a helmet for part of the presentation. But when you have the helmet off, you still look a little like her.”

Em, saying Gyre looks like her father. Gyre feels something move in her gut—warmth at the familiarity, uncertainty whether or not she liked the comparison. How it had been, when Em first met Gyre’s father. He was getting on now, and they didn’t have much money, and he hadn’t been able to come to the hospital when she was recovering—Em had offered to pay for him coming, and Gyre had told her no. She didn’t want her father to see her like that. (In a way, she hadn’t wanted to see him either. Hadn’t imagined he would be a comforting presence. And, too, hadn’t wanted to see any reminder of her other life, past life, real life, when her spirit, she had felt, was still down there in the caves.) So her father hadn’t come to see her until afterward, and then his attitude towards Em had been hesitant. He didn’t know the details of the mission or what Em’s goals had been or the insanity that had driven her, but he’d known what the mission cost Gyre. The damage.

Gyre said to him, “This is Em Arasgain. She personally oversaw my mission. I…” _I almost died because of her deluded dream_. “I wouldn’t have made it out alive without her.”

And her father’s eyes had looked wet when he thanked Em for getting his little girl back to him. It was maybe the first time she’d ever seen him cry. A dull guilt had spread through her. When thinking about getting out of the caves, she hadn’t thought about him. When thinking about staying in the caves, with the dead, she hadn’t thought about him either.

“I look like my father,” she says now, repeating it. Is she more like her father or her mother? And if it comes down to it, which would she prefer?

(She knows the truth—she is neither of her parents’ child anymore. She is the ill-cobbled creation of Em and the caves.)

Em pulls her away from these thoughts, saying, “Peregrine should recognize you anyway. She knew your father at the age you are now. She should recognize you. She might not though. People see what they expect to see.”

“And of course she hasn’t been thinking about me in years,” Gyre says. Her fist clenches at her side. One fist—she doesn’t wear the prosthetic to bed. She’s learned how to use it so it’s functional, but that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable.

“Maybe she has,” Em says, though she should know better than to defend Peregrine to a bitter daughter. But it isn’t defense, really—“It’s always harder than one expects, to leave the past behind. Make a clean break.”

“She made a clean break,” Gyre says. She closes her eyes. The room’s light still leaves a golden haze beyond her eyelids. Real world, never dark enough. What she wants to say is, _Let’s make it ugly_. The words are poised at the tip of her tongue, but they do not quite leave. Does she want to hurt her mother? Does she want an explanation?

Part of her still wants to run away, to never have to follow through on this confrontation. Go back to the caves. Life is simple there.

But that is only the ghost of her, and she has committed to real living. She rolls over in bed, right on top of Em, who lets out a surprised little squawk.

“I thought you were too tired tonight, after all the business arrangements and the rehearsing.”

“I just took an adrenalin injection,” Gyre says. “Let’s fuck.”

“Gyre. We really should make plans for…”

“You really don’t ever listen to me, do you?” Gyre kisses Em’s neck. “I’d rather just fuck.”

These days Em has a lot of trouble saying no to her.

* * *

Wearing the suit again should scare her but it just makes her feel braver. In the suit she has done impossible things before and can do impossible things again. In the suit Em is holding her, so she is safe. No matter what, she is safe.

They go to the meeting.

The boardroom is so damn clean. She is getting used to clean rooms; everything around Em, she finds, is spotless, and of course Gyre is around Em a lot. Gyre starts out with her helmet on, seeing the room through a reconstruction. It’s funny the things the reconstruction picks up on and the things it misses. It catches indentations on the wall that Gyre would not have noticed with the paint over them; it misses the lush patterns on the wooden table in the center of the room.

She recognizes Peregrine Price even through the reconstruction, but doesn’t see her all that well until halfway through the demonstration, when Em switches off the reconstruction to demonstrate the headlamp. Then she takes a good look. They’ve looked at pictures before, of course—Gyre and Em together. Peregrine looks like the pictures, very focused and very academic and very well-off. Not at all like the stressed, poor mother she once was to Gyre.

Gyre has sometimes, thinking about things logically, found it hard to blame her for leaving. But she’s not finding it very hard right now.

When she takes off the helmet, she looks straight at Peregrine. Peregrine becomes discomposed. Of course, her nervousness might just be that this strange woman is staring at her. Does she recognize Gyre? Gyre raises her eyebrows. Then she refocuses on what Em is saying—telling her to activate the fins on the suit, to show that she can control it as well as Em. This presentation is an actual business presentation, not just an excuse to see Peregrine’s face, so Gyre follows Em’s instructions, and waits until after the demonstration to make her move.

Then the business executives are mingling with Em and Gyre and the couple other people they brought with them from Arasgain. Everyone wants to talk to Em, but when Gyre walks over to Peregrine, Em pushes away from her devotees to follow her. Gyre sticks out a gloved hand, a hand which is a combination of her and Em at once (and also the one real hand she has left), and Peregrine hesitantly takes it. Gyre squeezes it. In the suit, she can squeeze things pretty hard.

“Gyre Price,” she says.

Peregrine’s smile drops off her face. Her eyes widen.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Gyre says, “Mom.”

The only word Peregrine says is, “Oh.”

Gyre lets go of her hand and waits for her to say something more. An excuse, maybe. Or, “ _You found me_.” When she was a kid, she liked to think her mother would be happy when she found her. Like the end of a treasure hunt.

But all Peregrine says is, “Oh”, though she says it loudly enough that a number of people in the room look at her questioningly. And then, pale as if she’s seen a ghost, she leaves the room at a hurried pace.

Em touches Gyre’s shoulder, and Gyre suddenly wants, more than anything, to get out of her suit and feel Em’s skin against her skin. It’s not what she should be thinking in this moment—this moment she has waited for more than half her life—but Em. Em is so much realer than the woman who has just left. (Left again; and Em will always stay.)

“We can find her later, if you want,” Em says. It’s true. They know where her office is. They have her email, her phone number, every other piece of information a very thorough background check could scrounge up. For Gyre to use it, if she wants to. Em says, “For now, shall we go?”

Back to the hotel, to curl up in the dark and plot another step, careful as if they were checking a wall for where to lay a secure bolt. Gyre knows she should plunge forward, go after the woman and grab her and talk to her and make her listen, but she’d rather be with Em. She wants to touch Em’s lips with her own bare fingertips. So she nods, and lets Em lead her away.


End file.
